Till We Find Our Place

It started, for Vitani, with a tiny golden speck in the distance, held aloft by the strange primate she had seen from time to time before they were forced from the pridelands. She and her brother heard the whispers of the crowd, and although they were too far away to tell, too young to know how to tell, they learned that the second child of Simba was not the replacement son he’d hoped for, but a girl.

“A girl!” Nuka had cackled maliciously, giggling and muttering, as if this amusing twist of fate had been of his own design. Vitani was not so pleased, although she said nothing. Maybe a girl was more dangerous than a boy. Boys were bigger, but from what she had seen from her brother, stupider. Her mother had not let her gender interfere with her ambitions. What if the daughter of Simba had all of his strength, and the cunning of a woman? But no- cunning had to be taught by a cunning role model, like Scar. She would be harmless.

The Outlanders had been graced with the male heir that Simba was not capable of conceiving. Not that Scar had been any luckier in his attempts, but that was irrelevant. Kovu had been chosen by the dark king, named in his honour. And he was of good stock too, whatever that meant. So as Vitani grew, she knew that their future was on the shoulders of her adopted brother, that he was important- her mother made certain that they all knew that.

On her regular scouting trips into the Pridelands to scavenge for both food and information, she often caught the smell of the other young lioness. It was when she was old enough to travel by herself that Vitani next saw the daughter of Simba.

It was a beautiful, sunny day, and so bad for hiding. It was hot, too, and the air was full of flies. Vitani kept to the tall grass, slinking quietly towards her favourite spot from which to peer at the going-ons of Simba, the Betrayer, the Interloper, the False. Suspicion among her pride held that he wasn’t really Simba, and certainly not Mufasa’s son, and instead a rogue preying on the broken-hearted elder, Sarabi. Her weakness and longing to have a family allowed her to believe that brute to be her long-lost son. It was nonsense, and anger prickled at the tips of Vitani’s fur. To manipulate a kind old lioness like that was beyond low.

“Timon, will you leave me alone! I’m not a cub anymore! I just want a breath of fresh air for once.” At the sound she flattened herself. They were too close. Vitani inhaled: good, they were upwind of her position. Timon, she knew, was one of the two prey animals that lived with them, Great Kings only know why. Whether it was the rodent or the hog, she couldn’t remember, but it was normal for the princess to have one or both with her. Finally she caught sight of them and watched, distaste for the cushy, fattening life this girl led building in her thoughts.

But the young Vitani was, nonetheless, fascinated. She spent most of her time around other lionesses, as was normal, but she had never seen a pridelander lioness up close- at least, not since they’d been banished, and she’d been so young then. Was it normal, she wondered, that Kiara’s step was light and careless, her muscles rolling and loose beneath a rich pelt, rather than tense under a taut, dusty coat? This namby-pampy princess was just overfed, Vitani told herself. Allowed to sleep through the day and eat the kills of her mother and aunts. Still, she sat and watched. It wouldn’t be long before they were both adults. Kovu’s mane had started to grow in. So why did those orange eyes still have the twinkle of naivety, of cubhood?

At the point that she realised she could tell the colour of the pridelander’s eyes, Vitani knew she had gotten too close and had been crouching there too long. A waver in the wind direction would give her position away immediately. She began to back away, and, to her surprise, it was not one of her guardians but the princess who flicked her ears towards the subtle rustle of grass. But she made nothing of it, and continued on her way, trying to reason with creatures she could have (should have!) bitten the throats from. Good instincts, thought Vitani, but no training. Simba was a fool to let his own flesh and blood wallow in her own inexperience and ignorance. Every member of the pride was an asset, a weapon to be honed to its sharpest potential. Her mother had taught her that.

And while she slid off towards the boundary, wrinkling her nose as she passed one of the brutish Simba’s scent markings, Vitani could think only of the energetic adolescent, and wonder what sort of weapon Kiara might have been, and what sort of lioness she herself might have been, raised as a daughter rather than merely another tooth in her mother’s bite?

She shook it off with a dour expression.

Although Zira liked to pair her up with her brothers on missions, Vitani had little time for Nuka, and only perhaps slightly more for Kovu, saviour though he might be. It was difficult not to resent him, considering all the times she’d be forced to surrender her kill for his nourishment. But she managed a healthy admiration for him, and for what he put up with from their sometimes overzealous matriarch. Didn’t mean she had to be best friends with him. That afternoon, returning from her scouting, she made her mandatory report and then made a beeline for the shade cast by the termite mound where Madoa and Ibura were dozing. They didn’t acknowledge her as she approached, but the sliver of a brown eye slowly revealed was all the invitation Vitani needed. She paused and looked at them, mentally comparing their slim, undernourished figures to the princess of the pridelands. When she did, she felt an unexpected fascination. The quiet flick of an ear, the curve of a haunch, the definition of muscle and sinew; each caught her eye and called for her attention in ways they never had before.

“Tani?” Ibura questioned, flexing her toes and pushing her claws out. The mechanism seemed beautiful to Vitani.

“What?” She grunted defensively, and flopped down beside them, almost close enough to touch, but not quite. “Just another pointless recon mission. You should see how fat the daughter is. Enough to feed the entire hyena clan for days.” Her biting tongue warded away any suspicion on the part of her friends, and everything returned to normal on the surface.

Vitani started looking for her when she went out. She would go into the pridelands when it was not her turn to go, and when it was she would invent excuses to feed Nuka so that they could get a little bit closer. When they spied upon Simba and his followers, she felt a distinct edge of danger, a tingle of fear, but when her sights were set upon Kiara there was no risk too great. Although she great steadily bigger, sleeker, she grew no more dangerous. Besides that, it was nice to watch her. Hell if Vitani knew why. But it was part of her duties anyways, so why not make the most of it, given the opportunity? She told herself that it was a sort of smug irony- that no matter how plump and healthy she looked, Kiara would stand no chance when they took over, and would be killed as the offspring of Simba.

Part of Vitani never really believed they would go through with The Plan. She secretly expected to spend her entire life in the outlands, or at least Zira’s entire life in the outlands. Once her mother had returned to The Circle, her fanaticism and obsession would go with her. Then they could move on to some other place, far from Mufasa’s old territory, because there would be no reconciling with Simba and his pride. She knew there would be no apology meaningful enough, no sacrifice great enough, to make up for the death of his firstborn son.

So when they were watching as Kovu went up the slopes of Pride Rock with Simba and his buffoon of a daughter, it all seemed like a dream. It couldn’t really be happening, could it? And that little twinge she felt when Kiara looked at her adoptive brother with a smile and said his name... it couldn’t be jealousy... could it?

So she went closer than she’d ever dared to go before, close enough to see the individual lions on Pride Rock; she went every day, watching from just out of sight, anger and resent for everything wrong in her life growing steadily. Her thoughts started out rational. How dare Kovu get special treatment all his life when all he had to do was seduce the princess and then murder Simba in his sleep? And what sort of stupid plan was this? Killing their king wouldn’t ally these lionesses with their estranged pridesisters. Or was that not part of Zira’s plan? Did she really anticipate a wholesale slaughter? Or did she just want to break their spirits by murdering Simba and then bully them off the land and take over? It was absurd. It was a waste of time.

And as she watched Kovu worm his way into Kiara’s heart her internal protests became less rational. How could her mother sink so low as to raise a cub his entire life for the sole purpose of seducing and manipulating a naive, sheltered little brat like Kiara? And why did Kovu get to do it? Why couldn’t Vitani do it? Maybe she should barge in there and tell Kiara what was really going on. Steal her away from Simba and run from Zira, teach her to be a real lioness, to use her claws. Kiara was so gentle, she would forgive her for being part of the plot, for all the spying and eavesdropping. But both Zira and Simba would hunt them down and kill them. Then maybe the best thing to do would be to desert and join the pridelanders? No, it was too late for that. Another defecting outlander right after Kovu would be suspicious, and she would have no bargaining chip. She had never saved the daughter of Simba. Kiara wouldn’t even know her name.

Days passed and she saw all too clearly what was happening to Kovu. In the face of a receptive young female he forgot conquest and duty and stole Vitani’s dreams, Vitani’s ambitions- stole Vitani’s place at the laughing lioness’s side. And in that he betrayed her, betrayed his family, betrayed his pride.

It wasn’t until the moment the words were out of her mouth, the report that betrayed him, her own brother, that she began to question her motives, and began to question how sane her behaviour was. Her judgement had become clouded. Even as Zira demanded to know if she was sure, sure that Kovu had dared to put the love of a girl above his lifelong mission, Vitani knew she would regret ratting him out. But she did it anyways, trying not to stumble over her guilt.

“Affirmative.”

She tried to be a soldier, and she tried to distance herself from her emotions.

The young lioness found her guilt and jealousy and longing grew heavier with every progression of her mother’s wicked plot. Determined to bottle it up and make that soft face leave her thoughts for good, she followed orders as she always had. She scowled when they framed Kovu and attacked Simba, mourned when Zira’s impatience and bloodlust killed Nuka, and struggled to untangle her mess of feelings as they prepared to march on the pridelands.

They fought, and she was glad not to see the face of her brother among them, although not surprised, and both surprised and glad to find that Kiara was missing. She bit and tore, confused as to why, but found relief in the sheer simplicity of battle, giving vent to her internal frustrations. She tasted the blood of her own kind, not for the first time, and she wasn’t sure what to think about it. So she didn’t think.

But the fear that that naive little twit, utterly helpless, could be among the bloody, the wounded, could be pulled down any moment by her sisters at arms, wriggled through her mind and distracted her. She pulled away from the fight and scaled a rock, searching for the girl. Catching the eye of the prideland queen, desperately the outlander snarled,

“Where’s your pretty daughter, Nala?” Some sort of reassurance would have been nice, a scalding remark about her running away with Kovu, or missing, perhaps. Anything. The reply shocked her.

“Vitani!”

The enraged utterance set her off balance. How did she know that name? Had she had a hand in raising Vitani, in the good days before Kopa was killed, before she was old enough to remember? Perhaps as a toddling innocent she had shared a place with the king’s son at Nala’s teat, as sneaky and thirsty cubs will often do? In a split second the whimsy was gone, and she became the daughter of Zira, leaping from her perch to meet claws with the older lioness. They rolled, and any wafting memories were suffocated by the buffeting of her back and sides against the rock as she tried to strike and avoid the swipe of Nala’s paw. The two came to even ground again and pulled back, regaining their balance. Vitani could see by the look in the queen’s eyes that there would be no more words between them.

They sparred, but a roar quickly drew their eyes to their respective pride leaders. Zira was going to take Simba on. At once despair flooded Vitani. Simba would kill her. She stood no chance, and he had the power of rage. She was the murderer of his son. And then what? They would flee, perhaps, or die. Kiara was missing, Nuka dead, Kovu gone, and her mother about to die. Her whole world would unravel when the final blow was struck. So she fell quiet and still, watching the scene unfold, and was amazed when the others did the same.

Zira was mad.

Then there she was. Kiara. Defusing the situation, challenging her own father. Vitani swelled with pride at her confidence, but was visibly shocked when Kiara called her and her kin pridelanders. The words rung in the outlander’s ears. “Look at them. They are us. What differences do you see?” Possibility sprung up in Vitani’s heart, and she felt suddenly weary of fighting, of hating Simba. She could be with Kiara... or at least, near her. She could live somewhere with abundant food. With water. With the young lioness who consumed her thoughts. Perhaps they could settle this-

“Vitani, now!”

Her heart stopped, and she spoke without thinking, spoke straight from her desires.

“No, mother,” She turned and looked at her brother, and at the one he had stolen from her. But for the moment she couldn’t be jealous of him, could she? Lions go with lionesses. Lionesses go with lions. It made sense, and besides... at least he had good taste? And in that pairing there was the potential to get out of this alive, to get out of this a pridelander again. They could go home at last, and Zira wouldn’t have to throw herself at Simba’s fangs. “Kiara’s right,” she murmured, barely able to say it but finding relief in the words as she dared to look into her mother’s face, “enough.” Although she longed to place herself beside the princess, she stood by Kovu, already far enough out of her comfort zone, afraid of revealing too much of herself all at once.

Her mother would have none of it. She had immersed herself too far in her hatred to ever let go.

She had a heart darker than a zebra’s stripes. She could never have been happy.

Her desires consumed her.

But none of those things changed the horror and grief that wracked Vitani when she threw herself needlessly from a cliff. It only bandaged the hurt, and did nothing to soothe it. She cried her loss to the sky that night, for Nuka, for her mother. They had treated her poorly, they had no interest in her happiness or well-being, but they were her family, and she had loved them anyways. Zira had always believed that she did what she did for honour, for the pride. It wasn’t her fault that she became so confused, so corrupt, was it?

Simba took them in, and she saw with her own eyes that he was not the beast they’d always been taught he was. Everything changed. For some of her friends, it was good change. They flourished, their hearts free of the burden of hate, their bellies full, and their homeland returned to them. For Vitani, the change was bittersweet. Everything she’d known was gone or dismantled, disproven or rearranged, and every day she was faced with more and more certainty that watching Kiara from afar and dreaming of her was better than being constantly near her and knowing she had no chance with her and never did. She came to resent Kovu, and regularly had bizarre nightmares about killing him and wearing his mane, or about turning into Kiara and having to be his mate, or fighting Nuka over possession of the beautiful female heir. They were strange dreams, and little better than her waking thoughts.

After a while she began to exert herself trying to impress Kiara, exhausting herself bringing down antelope alone, out-roaring the males, and trying to do more than her share in hunts in hopes that she would be watching. Nothing happened. She grew weary of it, and fast, and retracted into her shell. Madoa and Ibura, of whom she’d been fond growing up, were perplexed by her sour attitude.

“You know,” pondered Ibura one day as they lay digesting their most recent meal, “You’ve been more unhappy here than you ever were in the outlands.”

“You don’t still believe that crap Zira fed us about Simba back in the day, do you?” Madoa contributed.

“Of course not,” Vitani snapped, her eyes snapping open and her lip curling to show her teeth. “I’m not a fucking moron.”

“See, that’s exactly what I’m talking about,” said Madoa, lifting her head slowly and licking her lips in thought.

“You’re just so irritable,” added her sister, “What’s been chewing your tail these past seasons?”

“It’s nothing!” She snarled, suddenly getting to her feet and stalking off. The twins stared after her, confused and hurt. Not far away, some of the other lionesses were listening. Malaika, one of the outlander lionesses who’d been around Vitani’s age when they were banished, had started up an easy friendship with Kiara and a number of the other pridelanders, and she and the princess watched the exchange with concern. Wordlessly, Kiara rose and went softly treading after Vitani.

“Your approach is clumsy and loud. It’s no wonder you’re not much of a huntress,” Vitani said bitingly from where she sat in the shade, having heard Kiara coming her direction. A rebellious something inside of her sent tingles up her skin at the other lioness’s voice.

“I’ve been told as much.” She smiled, brushing off the insult, but then her expression became unhappy. “I don’t expect you to talk to me, I mean, I don’t know you very well, but-”

“What do you want?”

“I just wanted to let you know that if we’re doing something to upset you, just tell me and I’ll talk to the other lionesses. We’re all part of this pride.” Ever the peacemaker. Vitani snuck a look at her and felt she couldn’t look away. Kiara had grown out of her baby fat since the fight at the cliff, and she was strong, young- ready for motherhood. The only thing stopping Kovu from making that a reality was his respect for (and lingering fear of) Simba. Only the King had the right to sire cubs. Oh, but she looked ripe, a young maiden eager to experiment, ready to be swept off her feet and shown the world. What did Vitani know about that sort of stuff? Nothing.

She turned away, if only to stop herself from staring, and didn’t venture a reply. It was a mark of how surprised she was by the action that, when Kiara rubbed the bridge of her nose against the back of Vitani’s neck, her claws unsheathed without warning. Seeing how tense the outlander became, the heir to the throne backed away, afraid of having made her uncomfortable. She had noticed that the newest pride members weren’t quite as physical with their sisterly affection, if only because of their gruff, soldier-like upbringing.

“If there’s anything I can do, just... let me know, okay?” And with that she was gone. Vitani didn’t move. After a few moments, she released the breath she was holding and settled in the shade of the rock. Maybe a nap would clear her head.

Or maybe not.

“Scar used to sleep there,” interrupted the low, smooth voice of the king. Vitani’s eyes shot open and she turned her face to him in disbelief.

“What are you saying? How was I supposed to know?” She snapped defensively. The way Simba looked at her was unsettling; it was like he was trying to see the colour of her soul.

“It’s fine if you want to sleep there. But don’t let yourself become like him, bitter because of his isolation, isolated because of his bitterness. There are always sunnier patches of rock to sleep on, if you don’t mind sharing them with someone.” With that cryptic bit of wisdom, he left her in peace. Part of her wondered if he was hitting on her, but she dismissed that quickly. If she had a lioness like Nala-

Again, she shouldn’t be thinking that way. Lions and lionesses. Not lionesses and lionesses.

Simba’s words haunted her, however, and knowing her lineage was not in her favour in terms of sanity, she began in earnest to rid herself of the negative attitude. She found herself spending a lot of time with Sarabi, who was nearing the end of her life but still had the mind and spirit of a lioness half her age. Vitani discovered she had a lot of respect for the mother of Simba, and learned much of the pridelands’ history that her own mother had omitted from their lessons. The two would often be found walking together in peaceful silence, or talking quietly of things both light-hearted and serious. Simba, even had he been the wisest king ever to live, could never have changed her opinion of him as much as Sarabi’s stories of his childhood did. Strangely, she found herself thinking of Nuka, and wondered how he would have taken to life in the pridelands- life without Zira. It was hard to imagine, but he might have actually mellowed out a little.

Without knowing it, Vitani herself began to mellow out. Eventually she found herself comfortable lying with the pridelander girls, dozing together in the glaring heat of the afternoon, grooming each other and enjoying the relative peace of the savannas. Simba’s watch became less suspicious, and her tone became less sharp and stinging. Still, she longed for Kiara. The odd time or two that the princess would groom her (only when Kovu wasn’t around, Vitani knew with an unhappy certainty) she experienced sheer bliss. She noticed, somewhat amused, that the younger lioness seemed to have a fixation with the tuft of fur on the top of her crown, and would spend a good deal longer cleaning it than was necessary. It tugged at her heartstrings and gave her delusions for a few days that Kiara was sending her signals, but of course, it was all just pridesister affection, and nothing more. She would do the same to any of the other lionesses.

The first change in this, sad as it was, happened after Sarabi passed away. Having grown attached to and incredibly fond of the matriarch, Vitani was devastated when one day during the rainy season, nearly a full cycle since they two groups merged, Sarabi went to sleep and never woke up. In a rare instance of vulnerability, the outlander found herself sobbing, nuzzling the greyed, unmoving face with the gentlest of touches. It was Kiara who approached Vitani, her own face marked with tears, and gave her comfort. Simba would mourn the hardest, although he knew how long and well Sarabi had lived, and that finally she was at peace.

Rather than go into the cave of Pride Rock, Vitani decided to seek out the solace of Scar’s old overhang to spend a sleepless night alone, feeling abandoned by every parental figure she’d known. It was there that Kiara found her, and washed the tears from her face, and lay with her until the sun rose. If Kovu wondered where his mate had gone, he did not go looking for her. They talked that night, and it was the first time they had a real conversation. They talked for hours, about their childhoods, about the members of their family, and about each other.

“I always wondered about this little tuft of fur on your head,” Kiara murmured, cozied up against Vitani’s side and whuffing the tuft in question.

“I’ve noticed,” Vitani replied, grinning and flicking an ear to bat at her chin. “What about it do you find so fascinating?”

“Well, it’s just so unusual. And sometimes in certain light you look like a teenage guy with his mane just growing in.”

“Maybe I am,” she joked, half-serious, and rolled so that she was on her side and her ‘do was out of Kiara’s reach.

“No,” the pridelander laughed softly, curling into the space created by Vitani’s change of position, making the other lioness’s heart hammer, “I’m pretty sure you’re a girl.”

“Only pretty sure?” was Vitani’s playful growl, and she gently bit down on the scruff of Kiara’s neck. It was a distinctly male act, as well distinctly sexual, and Kiara gasped a little. Vitani stopped hurriedly, sheepish. “Sorry. I got carried away,” she apologised quickly, and got to her feet, suddenly feeling guilty for indulging in so much contact with the princess. It was probably against fifteen royal laws and twenty ancient traditions, or something. Vitani moved a few feet from Kiara and sat with her back to her, obviously embarrassed by her behaviour.

“It’s okay,” the younger reassured. For once she was astonishingly stealthy, because when next she spoke her nose was just a breath away from the back of Vitani’s ear. “I think there’s a little bit of male in all of us,” she whispered, and then Vitani felt teeth clamp down gingerly on the back of her neck. The outlander inhaled sharply, her muscles tensing with surprise. The soft fur of Kiara’s belly whispered against her back momentarily, and then she let go and moved away.

Vitani followed.